Document Actions

Wolf kill: Will there have to be more?

"We understand there is some resistance out there," said [WDFW's] Pozzanghera, but the agency is committed to working with ranchers and cattlemen. "The whole situation is really tragic, most of all because it could have been avoided," said Jasmine Minbashian, of the nonprofit Conservation Northwest, which supported the decision in the end to kill the wolf pack because the animals had become reliant on livestock. "If you remove the pack without changing something on the ground, this situation is bound to repeat itself," she said.

SEATTLE (AP) -- Taking aim from a helicopter flying over northeastern
Washington state, a marksman last month killed the alpha male of a wolf
pack that had repeatedly attacked a rancher's cattle. The shooting put
an end to the so-called Wedge pack, but it did little to quell the
controversy over wolves in the state.

The issue has been so explosive that state wildlife officials
received death threats and the head of the Fish and Wildlife Commission
warned the public at a recent hearing in Olympia on wolves that
uniformed and undercover officers were in the room ready to act.

More conflicts between wolves and livestock are inevitable, officials
say, as wolves in Washington recover, growing in number more quickly
than expected. The animals numbered a handful in 2008, and are now
estimated at between 80 and 100.

"What are we going to do so we don't have this again?" asked Steve
Pozzanghera, a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife regional
director.

He said officials are trying to be proactive to prevent the need to
kill wolves in the future. They plan to collar more wolves this winter
to keep better track of them. They plan to ask the Legislature to beef
up money to compensate livestock owners whose animals are killed by
wolves. And they're urging livestock operators to sign agreements with
the state to share the cost of using a broad range of non-lethal
measures to prevent livestock-wolf conflicts.

So far, only one livestock owner has signed an agreement, with four
to six others in the hopper -- underscoring the challenges the agency
faces as it tries to recover the endangered native species while
encouraging social tolerance of the wolves by minimizing livestock
losses.

"We understand there is some resistance out there," said Pozzanghera,
but the agency is committed to working with ranchers and cattlemen.

"The whole situation is really tragic, most of all because it could
have been avoided," said Jasmine Minbashian, of the nonprofit
Conservation Northwest, which supported the decision in the end to kill
the wolf pack because the animals had become reliant on livestock.

"If you remove the pack without changing something on the ground, this situation is bound to repeat itself," she said.

The Stevens County Cattlemen's Association is urging its roughly 50
members not to sign those agreements. It wants the commission to remove
gray wolves from the state endangered list in Eastern Washington in the
near future.

"Our guys are willing to use these nonlethal methods ... The problem
is these methods are not always effective," said the group's spokeswoman
Jamie Henneman, noting the agreements address only symptoms. "The
illness happens to be that we're oversaturated with wolves."

Grey wolves are protected as an endangered species throughout
Washington state. The animals are federally listed as endangered only in
the western two-thirds of the state. Removing the animals from the
state endangered list could open the way to future wolf hunting.

While Montana, Idaho and Wyoming have been grappling with wolves in
the past decade, Washington has dealt with wolves only in recent years.
In 2008, a wolf pack was documented for the first time in 70 years. Now,
there are eight confirmed packs, with four others suspected.

The killing of seven members of the Wedge Pack -- named for the area
they inhabit along the Canadian border near Laurier -- has prompted an
outcry from some wolf advocates. Some have criticized the owners of the
Diamond M ranch for not taking enough non-lethal measures.

"As far as I know, we've done everything that they suggested might be
effective," Bill McIrvin said during a recent Olympia hearing. McIrvin
is one of the owners of the ranch, where wolves killed or injured at
least 17 animals on both private and public land. The ranch employed
cowboys, delayed the turnout of their cow-calf pairs until the animals
were bigger and quickly removed injured cattle, state officials said.

Wildlife officials say they're working on new rules to compensate
ranchers for losses, including for reduced weight gain or reduced
pregnancy rates.

Ranchers who sign onto nonlethal agreements with WDFW would have priority for livestock compensation.

Sam Kayser, an Ellensburg cattle rancher, said he signed an agreement
with the state because he knows wolves will eventually target his
cattle and he wanted help.

"What are the wolves going to eat? They're going to eat elk. If the
elk numbers go short, they're going to eat my cattle," said Kayser,
whose cattle graze on thousands of acres of private land that he leases
in central Washington.

"Fish and Wildlife (department) was trying to be proactive and I was trying to be a little proactive myself," he added.

The state is sharing the cost of a range rider who stays with the cattle to make sure they don't become prey to wolves

Range riders have been used in other states to prevent wolf-livestock
conflicts. A pilot project in Stevens County over the summer is testing
the concept in this state. Officials have been working with a rancher
there and will review the success of that project in coming months to
see whether and how it can be duplicated elsewhere.